Sina
"I awoke up with the shell of a fish in one hand and its guts in the other. I hate fish. Why was I making my own food, I asked myself, where was my slave Henry. Menial labor was his purpose, and mine was to fight. Then I saw where I was, and why everything tasted like fish. Docks. Fucking docks of all places. I wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the sea, right? Don't agree, idiot. Anyway, it was just confusion for a few minutes. All I remember really is torching the fire pit, and it's like instead of lighting up the camp it lit up these fucking docks around me. That make sense? Fuck off, it makes sense. I woke up, and the strangest thing happened. I realized I was working, alongside pigskin, kneehighs, and other slaves like that. What'd I do? What'cha think I did, I tossed down that fish and started choking on that assfoul smell. That's when I saw something funny in the corner of my eye, 'Sides all the pigskins I mean. Some shambling freaks walking up the alley. Heard a start of alarm from the slave next to me, and that's all it took to get all the others shouting and running with more emotion then I'd seen since. Some pigskin tried to tug me away and I clunked 'em for it, cause that gutting knife would work great against a few shambling corpses. Anyway, about those drinks." '' - Sina, telling the story of her Awakening. Sina is a hobgoblin and former field commander of the Ironfang Legion. Recently, she has also become one of the Awakened set to explore the lands Beyond the The City of the Lost. She is a particularly strange member of the city as she is one of the few monstrous creatures living within its walls, and this leads to her being largely ignored by the understandably fearful residents.This aversion has only increased since Sina joined the ranks of the adventurers. History ''"If I see you running I'll BREAK YOUR FUCKING BACK!" - Sina, enabling PVP. Sina was born in the hobgoblin fortress town of Torgenvak, hidden inside the Candlestone Caverns . Beneath the softly glowing stalactites that helped give the area its name, she was reared and raised just like the rest of her kin -voluntarily given up by her parents soon after she was born, the army was her only family and every soldier an obstacle for her own ascension in the ranks. It was a violent, unforgiving, and quite often short world where a squad could suddenly be eaten by some wandering monster or ambushed by Kobold ingenuity. Birthdays were celebrated with an extra brutal regime of exercise, promotions done in the field, and celebrations simply another chance to impress your superiors and one-up your peers. Sina thrived. There she was called Sina Cruelchild, adopting the role of the load-bearing soldier in her squad's shieldwall. She and her squad would stand against the initial charge of any who dared to oppose their army - and she would personally slay anyone, in her squad or another, that she witnessed attempting to rout. It earned her the favor of commanders and the fear of her underlings. It was as close to appreciated as one could feel in Torgenvak. A true promotion finally came in the form of a basilisk consuming her squad leader, and she greatly enjoyed her five hours of command, because it was that same day that a combination of earthquakes and massed drow invasion destroyed Torgenvak. Sina and her squad were among the survivors, and this began the next chapter of her life. She and her underlings, bolstered by other Torgenvak survivors they met, traveled the land until they encountered the freshly created Ironfang Legion, and became some of its earliest recruits. There, her ability to inspire fear into her underlings and martial skill was valued even more highly by the much more aggressive Ironfang Legion, and she started her career as a battlefield commander charged with responding to a changing battlefield and ensuring the bravery of soldiers under her command. It was the most pride she had ever felt in that cruel, unforgiving world she had lived through for years. Finally she had been given some measure of control in her life, and a chance to really make her mark on the world. It lasted such a despairingly short time. The last memory she has of the world before is leaving to raze an isolated homestead for some supplies. She lit the campfire that night and suddenly woke up in The City of the Lost, her body having gone on autopilot for who knows how long. She doesn't know how she got here, or where her squad went, but she knows for damn sure she can't just keep scraping the guts out of fish. Personality "Donation? What does that even mean? If you need something, go take it. You got all those kids and you're telling me you can't find work for them? That's just tragic." - A show of genuine surprise and pity when learning of the local Orphanage's plight. At her heart, Sina is an incredibly ambitious woman with a hunger for recognition from those around her. She is responsible, and takes initiative for things she deems must be done or are in her realm of responsibilities, and isn't afraid to make decisions others find difficult. She has a natural aversion to excess, finding gaudy ornamentation or self-aggrandizement vulgar, and firmly believes in getting what you deserve - usually through the form of taking it, as she sees the world as a greedy, vicious place that will force you to fight tooth and claw for the barest scrap. That last perception is a direct result of her environment, as is the case for her generally overpowering force of personality. Her commanding nature is simply what she needed to develop to survive and thrive in the regimented world she grew up in. If you weren't barking orders and trying to push others around, then someone was pushing you around. It's better to be the bully than the bullied. The same reasoning goes for her perception of outsiders - the only true contact she's had with non-goblinoids is as opponents to slay or a resource to take advantage of. That's simply another facet of life, her people's 'common sense'. Where others see a happy home, she sees an unfortified burrow. Where others see a town, she sees a sloppy fortress created by naive and ignorant fools who are just going to get killed anyway if her people don't put them to good use. Life is a war, and Sina refuses to lose or rout. Ideals such as 'mercy' and 'peace' and other things aligned with a traditionally positive alignment are alien to her and detrimental to surviving in the world she's lived in, and the world she presumes she's still living in. You need to take to survive, you need to kill to elevate yourself, and you need glory to be something worth noticing. These are the rules of her world, and they haven't led her astray yet. Appearance Sina is tall for a hobgoblin but relatively short by the standards of most races at a stocky 5'2". Sina might've been pretty at one point but the rigors of soldiering in the Candlelit Army and Ironfang Legion has gifted her with an impressive array of scars and burns, many of which were inflicted during training to build her pain tolerance toughen her skin. She is a broad woman, which proved useful for the shield-wall. She has hard features - a sharp nose and a pair of red eyes constantly glaring warily out at the world. Her head is kept shaven out of habit, and she rarely leaves her room without donning her armor, given that she feels incredibly naked without it and her weapons. Her armor is pretty simple and unadorned, the symbol of her former legion crossed out with some paint. The only maintained symbol of her past life is the medal of rank she has from her past positions around her neck, crude iron markings of rank. Aspirations Sina remembers how nice it felt to be in charge, if only for a bit. She wants to recapture that feeling, and start her own legion or army or something! She'd need to find some proper soldiers, not like the City of the Lost's depressed population. She's still working on a name - maybe the Cruelchild Legion? Hmm...She'll work on it.